Bet Your Bottom (Line) on Blogs

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Bet Your Bottom (Line) on Blogs

Editor's note: Some links in this story lead to adult material and are not suitable for viewing at work. All links of this nature will be noted with "NSFW" after them.

Do you run a porn site? How about a webcam peep show? Or perhaps an adult entertainment conglomerate, distributing content in every format from new-hotness mobile phones to old-and-busted VCRs to (gasp) print?

If you publish sex, you might be wondering how best to take advantage of blogs – text, graphics, audio and video – and whether they can boost your bottom line.

The answer is: "Yes, probably, if you do it right."

At the Internext 2006 trade show, I joined a panel to speak to adult webmasters about where blogging fits into their business plans. The panel included John D'Addario of Fleshbot (NSFW) and Sam Sugar of Sugarbank (NSFW), two men who know exactly what makes a porn blog great.

(Here's a hint: It's not automatically aggregating a bunch of other porn feeds and posting it at your own URL.)

Several webmasters in attendance figured they already had plenty of content. They came to the seminar to learn how to monetize existing content using bloggy delivery methods like RSS and XML feeds. Some outright resisted the idea of creating new material from scratch.

But as far as I'm concerned, if you're just sending out pictures or video over a feed, you're not really blogging. That's no different than providing a daily pornographic e-mail or posting content to the website. You're taking advantage of "push" content delivery, but you're ignoring the potential that blogging has for your bottom line.

When I think of blogging, I think of interaction, of personality and style. A blog is a place to express individuality. A podcast can be, literally, a voice.

And when I think of adult entertainment and how I believe the best content providers will and must evolve, blogging is a huge part of it. By "blogging," I mean the whole format spectrum: text, pictures, audio, video and whatever else we invent to deliver through syndication and automated feeds.

Consumers have become so saturated with porn, even my mom has heard of sexual practices she'd rather not imagine. Easy access to adult content online and an abundance of sexual imagery in mainstream entertainment and advertising keep us in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction.

Eventually, perhaps sooner rather than later, we'll stop supporting the generic porn churn. We'll become a hell of a lot more demanding about what we expect in return for our porn dollars.

I think consumers will drift toward publishers who keep their content interesting to two audiences: young adults who take internet porn for granted because they grew up with it, and veterans whose tastes have matured since Jennifer Ringley first switched on her cam 10 years ago.

Both congregations hunger for something new and different, but no matter how much technology we have, we can only do so much to vary sexual content.

The only thing that sets one naked woman apart from a thousand others, after you've seen 'em all, is her personality.

Danni Ashe did not become the most downloaded woman on the internet because she was the prettiest stripper in America or because she had the biggest boobs. (Although, having spent time with her in person, I can tell you that she's gorgeous in real life, more so than in her pictures. And she does have beautiful breasts.)

Danni's popularity depended as much on her ability to convey her personality – to make her subscribers feel special (.ram clip) – as on her talents as a model, dancer and web designer. She scored big, retaining members in an era when Playboy and Penthouse were still struggling to get their magazines online.

And this was back when most customers still had dial-up internet connections.

It's obvious Danni no longer wields creative control of Danni.com (NSFW), judging from the messy design, bad writing and numerous grammatical errors. (And what is it! with porn sites! and exclamation points!!!!) But the site still touts the interaction between consumer and performer as a major benefit of membership.

Individual, personal content is the basis for Suicide Girls' (NSFW) popularity. It makes "amateur" sites from Canadian sex blogger and performer Seska (NSFW) more professional than a lot of "professional" porn. (Yes, Seska publishes hard-core – click around.)

Blogs foster relationships between entertainer and consumer. And relationships translate into repeat visitors and subscription renewals. Not to use technical jargon, but relationships make a site sticky.

Consumers return to good blogs to see what the author is thinking about, or to check whether someone responded to a comment they posted last time. If the performer replies to fan comments in her blog, she almost guarantees repeat visits, without the same time commitment individual e-mail requires.

Live chat and webcam performances might be the main event for independent webmistresses, but that requires makeup, lighting, scheduling, promotion and a certain level of technical savvy. Blogging keeps the fans hot between shows, and she can blog in her bathrobe.

Audio and video blogs offer an opportunity to talk directly to an individual fan, mentioning him by name or handle. Who wouldn't tune in again for the chance of hearing your own name on her luscious lips? Including a few personal stories gives listeners the feeling that they are hearing the real woman behind the public face.

A performer can extend her star tenure by years if her blog is particularly intelligent, funny and arousing. Group blogs, where multiple porn stars interact with each other and fans take advantage of critical mass, produce higher traffic in less time per performer. As a community grows around the content, so do profits, especially if all or most of the blog is free.

That's a theme that recurred throughout our Internext panel. A blog is (probably) not going to generate revenue like a subscription website, especially if it's just an iTunes video feed. I've never met anyone who pays for access to a blog.

But adding one or more quality blogs to an adult publishing venture opens up so much potential for affiliate programs, advertising, sponsorships, merchandising, branding and publicity that you would be foolish to attempt to charge for it.

Blogs with fresh content give journalists and other bloggers something to link to. Respect the blog community and it can become a word-of-mouth marketing dream, exposing you to potential customers outside your usual reach.

You could try to convince me that porn fans don't want to relate. After all, the argument goes, that's why they're watching porn. If they wanted to relate they'd be chatting up girls in Second Life or Adult Friend Finder instead.

But I've been to the Adult Entertainment Expo for three years running and whether they admit it or not, every fan there attends for the chance to relate, if only for a moment or two. And every performer basks in her star status. Blogs extend that dynamic beyond the show floor for year-round mutual stimulation.